Peace Democrats, Copperheads and Draft Riots

Throughout his presidency, Abraham Lincoln faced serious
opposition to his political and wartime policies. Even in the
North, the Civil
War was so divisive and consumed so many lives and resources that
it
could hardly have been otherwise.

Opposition to Lincoln naturally coalesced in the Democratic
Party, whose candidate, Stephen Douglas, had won 44 percent of
the free states' popular vote in the 1860 election.

The strength of the opposition generally rose and fell in
proportion to the North's effectiveness on the battlefield. The
first manifestation of dissatisfaction with the war effort -- and
by extension Lincoln -- came not from the Democrats, however, but
from the Congress, which formed the Joint Committee on the
Conduct of
the War in December 1861 to investigate the poor Union showing at
Bull Run and Ball's Bluff. Dominated by radical Republicans, the
Joint Committee pushed the Lincoln administration toward a more
aggressive engagement of the war, as well as toward emancipation.

As might be expected from the party of "popular sovereignty,"
some Democrats believed that full-scale war to reinstate the
Union was unjustified. This group came to be known as the Peace
Democrats. Their more extreme elements were called "Copperheads."

Whether of the "war" or "peace" faction, few Democrats believed
the emancipation of the slaves was worth shedding Northern blood.
Indeed, opposition to emancipation had long been party policy.
In 1862,
for example, virtually every Democrat in Congress voted against
eliminating slavery in the District of Columbia and prohibiting
it in the territories.

Much of the opposition to emancipation came from the working
poor, particularly Irish and German Catholic immigrants, who
feared a massive migration of newly freed blacks to the North.
Spurred by
such sentiments, race riots erupted in several Northern cities in
1862.

With the Emancipation Proclamation of January 1863, Lincoln
clearly added the abolition of slavery to his war aims. This was
far
from universally accepted in the North. In both Indiana and
Illinois,
for example, the state legislatures passed laws calling for peace
with the Confederacy and retraction of the "wicked, inhuman and
unholy" proclamation.

The North's difficulties in prosecuting the war led Lincoln, in
September 1862, to suspend the writ of habeas corpus and impose
martial law on those who interfered with recruitment or gave aid
and comfort to the rebels. This breech of civil law, although
constitutionally justified during times of crisis, gave the
Democrats another opportunity to criticize Lincoln. Secretary of
War Edwin Stanton enforced martial law vigorously, and many
thousands --
most of them Southern sympathizers or Democrats -- were arrested.

The Union's need for manpower led to the first compulsory draft
in U.S. history. Enacted in 1863 to "encourage" enlistment, the
draft further alienated many. Opposition was particularly strong
among
the Copperheads of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Wisconsin,
where federal troops had to be called out to enforce compliance
with
it.

It must be noted that a man who was drafted could buy his way out
for $300, about the equivalent of an unskilled laborer's annual
income at that time. This feature added to the impression --
strongly held
in parts of the Confederacy as well -- that this was a "rich
man's
war and a poor man's fight."

The most significant resistance to the draft took place in New
York City in the summer of 1863. A Democratic Party stronghold,
New
York had already seen several draft officials killed that year.
In
July a group of blacks were brought into the city, under police
protection, to replace striking Irish longshoremen. At the same
time,
officials held a lottery drawing for the unpopular draft. The
conjunction
of the two events led to a four-day riot in which a number of
black neighborhoods, draft offices and Protestant churches were
destroyed and at least 105 people killed. It was not until
several Union regiments arrived from Gettysburg that order could
be restored.

The most celebrated civil case of the Civil War also took place
that year. It concerned Clement Vallandigham, an aspiring
Democratic candidate for the governorship of Ohio. Apparently
seeking to
bolster his candidacy, Vallandigham defied a local military ban
against "treasonous activities" and attacked Lincoln's policies,
calling
for negotiations to end the war and terming it "a war for the
freedom
of the blacks and the enslavement of the whites." Union soldiers
subsequently broke into his house and arrested him.

The legality of Vallandigham's arrest was immediately challenged
by the Democrats and, indeed, some Republicans as well.
Lincoln's response was to have him sent behind Confederate lines,
where Vallandigham won the nomination. Making his way to Canada,
he
then carried out a boisterous, but unsuccessful, campaign.

Despite the Union victories at Vicksburg and Gettysburg in 1863,
Democratic "peace" candidates continued to play on the nation's
misfortunes and racial sensitivities. Indeed, the mood of the
North was such that Lincoln was convinced he would lose his
re-election
bid in November 1864.

The Democratic candidate for president that year was General
George McClellan, the man Lincoln had removed as commander of the
Army
of the Potomac two years earlier. McClellan's vice presidential
candidate was a close ally of Vallandigham. Despite the hopes of
the
Democrats, however, McClellan refused to embrace the party's goal
of
negotiating an end to the war. Nonetheless, with victory at last
within
sight, Lincoln easily defeated McClellan in November, capturing
every Northern state except New Jersey and Delaware.